I Am Robbie

The silver hair was not unusual.

It had long since been established in Robbie’s database that his peers were fond of fun and dynamic hair colors; he wasn’t even quite sure what Daniel’s original head had looked like, anymore. Last week he had been blond, the week before that redheaded, and the week before that dark brunet. Daniel stuck mostly to natural colors.

Holly, on the other hand, preferred to pop. Sometimes she reminded Robbie of a new penny—bright, bronze, and shining. Billions of pennies had brought Robbie to life.

So when Holly bounced into Peter’s Pizza with her ebony fringe newly dusted bright, snowmelt silver at the tips, Robbie was not surprised. Instead, he looked up (wearing a normal fourteen-year-old expression), stood (with a very naturally charismatic grin), and greeted her amiably (“Hey, what’s up,” like any other ninth grader at school).

“Hi, Robbie,” chirped Holly, flitting over to drop her bookbag in the seat next to him. “Ooh, nice hair!”

Ah, yes, the hair. If Robbie was being honest with himself—and he was always honest with himself, because he had been taught few lies—he yearned to be human. He wanted to be like Holly and Daniel who could love and hate and fear. He didn’t like being the outlier, the outcast, even if no one knew it.

That was why, for the first time, Robbie had dyed his hair.

It wasn’t anything crazy—just a blond streak that showed that he could be like the others. He could “have fun”. He could fit in, and do what everyone else was doing.

His scientist had not known about it. That pleased Robbie. It made him feel rebellious, which was something he could not feel but pleased him anyway.

“Where’s Danny?” Holly flagged over a waitress. “One Hawaiian, please, and one mushroom. And water, thank you. This place is amazing, right?”

Holly was always cheerful. There was not a single time Robbie could remember in which she had been in low spirits. And if he couldn’t remember one, there had not been one. Robbie’s memory was impeccable; in fact, Robbie could list all the bubblegum pinks and wine bottle-greens Holly had ever worn starting from January first of 2500. That was the day he’d arrived at the wide glass school and introduced himself—not as Robot-647aE—but as Robbie, the new kid with no last name.

Robbie checked his watch, acting as if he didn’t know the time already. Normal people didn’t have a miniscule copper-wire clock inside their copper-wire brains, ticking by the seconds and milliseconds and nanoseconds. “He’s late, that’s where he is.” 

“Ugh.” Holly rolled her eyes. “Again? That boy is unbelievable, honestly.”

“Yeah.” Robbie tsked good-naturedly.

He knew just the right amount of lift to put in his voice to fabricate humor. He could also mimic sadness, excitement, fear, and millions of others—but they were imitations, not the real thing. He had never felt the real thing. Often, he wondered what the real thing felt like.

The waitress in a starched-stiff white apron spun over to their table, steam swirling from her platter. “One Hawaiian and one mushroom.” Her voice was calming, pleasant, but just a touch too smooth. She was an android—most workers were.

“Ooh.” Holly rubbed her hands together, eyeing the plate. “That looks amazing.”

Robbie nodded, widening his eyes slightly. “Yeah, amazing,” he echoed. “Thanks for buying.”

“Yup,” said Holly, who was already munching on a slice. Her phone vibrated, and she checked it blithely.

Robbie bit into his pizza. He didn’t need it of course, didn’t need any food at all as long as he lay in his recharge pod at night. And he couldn’t taste the cheese, or the bread, or the mushrooms—no, the sole purpose of eating was to keep up his human appearance. If only he were human, Robbie thought wistfully, then he could enjoy eating like his friends.

He took another bite. The lonely thoughts were getting to him; he could feel something strange twisting in his gut. He glanced once at Holly, who was stuffing her face with the ham-and-cheese pizza while typing rapidly on her phone. The peculiar sensation grew.

“Omigosh, Robbie,” said Holly, eyes wide, “Have you seen this? Lia sent me this article and it’s, like, so—”

Her voice buzzed, thinning out into no more than a flat line of static. Robbie stared at her, placing his pizza back onto his plate. 

“Are you all right?” He tried to say, only his throat hissed and nothing came out.

The funny gut-feeling again. A gut-feeling was something that the humans liked to use to describe their consciences, something that told them when something was morally right or wrong. It was a very human asset, and for one hopeful, billowing, gasping moment Robbie thought that maybe he was becoming human. Maybe he was finally becoming like his friends.

But he knew, of course, that it was impossible. Something was wrong. This was not a human gut-feeling.

This was a hardware gut-feeling, and suddenly Robbie felt the closest thing he had ever experienced to fear.

Holly was leaning towards him, now, mouth moving. But he couldn’t hear her—his audio input must have glitched out—and now her silver-haired image was blurring in and out of focus. It was like looking at her through a thin sheet of rippling water. His perfect vision was faltering.

A high-pitched beep screeched through his consciousness, like an old-fashioned train whistle whining, and then nothing.

Robbie, for the first time in his two-year life, could not see. All was dark. All was silent. But he felt no fear, only vague confusion, because he was not human and only humans felt fear.

Where was he?

His vision darkened, then lightened, then flashed like a wire sparking. It probably was a wire sparking. The tiled pizza place wavered tremulously into view.

“Robbie?” Holly’s voice echoed. Her face swam in front of his eyes, looking vaguely concerned. “You alright?”

Robbie made himself nod. She brightened, smiling at him from over the blue-white light of her phone. He had observed over the years that Holly could be oblivious—everyone could. Sometimes it was puzzling to him, how a species could know so much yet understand so little.

But he had more immediate concerns. His vision was back, and he could hear, but a system error flashed holographically across his screen. Little red lines of text scrolled past rapidly, blinking at him glaringly. Something was wrong. What could be wrong?

“Hey, guys.” Daniel dropped into the seat beside him. “Sorry I’m late, I had to stop by the pharmacy to pick something up for my mom. Oh, man, that smells delicious.”

He pulled out a slice of mushroom pizza, eyeing the drooping cheese eagerly. 

“Hi,” Robbie said—or tried to say. Nothing came out.

He coughed silently. So his voice box had glitched. It was probably just a momentary hiccup, Robbie told himself. It was nothing to worry about.

The image of a sleek black bottle with a yellow label from the pharmacy swam into his mind. Parker’s Premium Hair Dye—Guaranteed 120 hours! Made with dime nioxide.

A leak. What if it had leaked? Dime nioxide, Robbie knew, sometimes had dangerous properties. Was it harmful to his system? It must have been—Robbie berated himself for not checking. His voice box was damaged now, and even if his friends had not noticed anything yet, they would soon.

“So,” said Daniel through a mouthful of pizza, “What are you guys up to these days?”

Holly shrugged. “Oh, nothing much. I have to take a star shuttle to visit my grandparents this weekend, it’s such a drag. I aced that Algebra 3 test, though, what’d you guys get? I swear, I thought I failed, we had so little time and Wilson was watching us like a literal hawk and…”

Her voice buzzed out again. Robbie blinked, willing his system to function properly again. One second, two seconds… Holly was still talking; he could see her mouth moving rapidly, but the busy sounds of the pizza place around him had dimmed to a disoriented hum.

Holly was turning to him now, asking a question. Just then the audio cut back in, clear and sharp. Robbie made himself breathe.

“Sorry, what?” His voice box was back. That was a relief. “I kind of spaced out there.”

Daniel reached over and slapped him on the back. “Same here, bro. Holly, as much as we love you, you gotta cut down on your jabbering.”

She rolled her eyes, grinning toothily. “Well, I was saying you probably got a hundred on your test, right? I don’t think you’ve ever missed a point on these things, Robbie, you’re so good at math. You probably have a calculator in your brain or something and is that an MI code?”

It took a moment for her question, spoken in her usual one hundred-words-a-minute fashion, to register. Robbie’s face remained impassive, but inside his (metaphorical) heart was thudding. 

An MI code was a string of designated numbers and letters printed on every manufactured bot. Usually Robbie’s was hidden by the same program that made his skin look like skin and his eyes look like eyes. If Holly could see his code she would know he was not a human, that he was an android, and that he had been lying to them all along—

Holly was still smiling, but Robbie recognized the hard look in her peridot eyes, ruby lipstick-lips just a little too tight. She had just thrown him into a dark room with an iron door, shone a bleached garish light in his eyes, and there was no escape. Daniel was leaning over, now, frowning, pizza forgotten.

“Is it really?” Daniel squinted, an expression of disbelief on his face. “No way. Robbie, why is there an MI code on the side of your face?”

His tone was accusatory. Robbie could almost hear his software brain clicking and whirring, trying to come up with a response, but he simply wasn’t advanced enough. Holly already knew, anyway.

For the first time in his life, Robbie had miscalculated.

“Robbie,” said Holly, mouth pressed into a thin line, voice flat, “Are you an android?”

Are you an android?

Are you an android?

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Holly fired. 

It was strange, he thought, to hear her speaking in such short, clipped sentences. “I wasn’t supposed to.” It was the truth. “I wanted to be like you.” That was the truth, too.

“Friends don’t lie to each other.” Holly shook her head. “Friends don’t keep secrets!”

“I did.” Robbie’s voice was numb. “Does that mean we’re not friends?”

They were silent. If Robbie were human, his eyes would have been stinging. But he wasn’t human. He was a robot, and robots couldn’t cry.

“Nah,” said Daniel finally, shaking his head. “Nah, it doesn’t.”

Robbie looked at him. What was he supposed to be feeling? Relieved? Happy? “Why not?”

Holly slumped back in her chair, lip trembling slightly. “I’m with Danny, but you shouldn’t have lied.”

“I’m sorry.” Robbie wasn’t. How could he be? He hadn’t been programmed to feel sorry. His scientist had not deemed it necessary. But he knew that he wanted to be sorry, and that was enough. “I wanted to keep being your friend.”

Daniel exhaled heavily. “I don’t wanna be friends with a lump of metal,” he muttered, “But you’re not a lump of metal. You’re cool to hang around with, even if you’re a little quiet. Besides, you’re nice and down-to-earth.”

A warm feeling spread in Robbie’s chest. So he had worried for nothing—his friends still accepted him. He didn’t have to be human. All would be well.

Holly sniffed. “I’m still mad at you,” she said, but it was halfhearted. “Don’t stop coming to our hangouts.”

Daniel took a generous bite from his pizza. “You better not. We’re friends. Now eat your pizza or I will, yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Robbie, the warm feeling pulsing—maybe he did have a bit of humanity inside him, after all. “Friends.”

19:27 HOURS LATER, FI3 LANE

There was a knock on the door.

Robbie frowned at the door, which glared back at him, all slim but unbreakable steel. He never got visitors—why would an android get visitors? In fact, no one had ever knocked on his door, and he only knew it was a custom because of his database of cultural knowledge. 

But he had no reason to ignore it, so he opened the door. 

“Come with us.” The waiting androids grabbed his arms, pulling him outside.

“What? Why?”

Robbie quickened his pace so that he would not fall and be dragged. These were worker bots, designed not to blend in with the humans like most recent androids, but to get the task done as quickly and efficiently as possible. They were strong and bulky. There would be no resistance.

“Robot-647aE was called in due to a report on a malfunction,” buzzed the android on his right. No money was spent making worker bots sound human.

Robbie felt the not-fear cling to him again. “A malfunction? I didn’t malfunction.”

The android on his left tightened its grip, so that Robbie knew if he were human he would be feeling pain. “There was also a report that Robot-647aE’s android identity was revealed to its human peers, a violation of Statement 23 in the Android Code.”

“My name is Robbie. You can call me Robbie.”

Robbie knew that they wouldn’t listen, but he didn’t know what else to say. Androids that malfunctioned were fixed and sent back home, although the debugging process could take years. Androids that malfunctioned and couldn’t be fixed were scrapped.

The inside of the car was plain and made of hard lines, smelling of medicine and copper. It was altogether not pleasant, and Robbie was almost glad when they moved to power him off. Maybe he could dream of eating ice cream with Holly and Daniel, instead of sitting as the car slid smoothly into the air. He wished robots could dream. He wished…

There was a soft whir as Robbie was turned off, and he knew no more.

Voices drifted through his artificial consciousness. That was strange. Usually powering off meant powering off. It must have been a part of the malfunction.

E.T.7 circuit’s fried… not fixable…

Scrap pile? So expensive…

...no can do… have to scrap…

Friends? ...memory wipe…

He was being scrapped, Robbie realized. No, he couldn’t be scrapped. It didn’t make sense. And his friends—he had just made peace with them. He had promised to keep going to their hangouts. He wanted to eat pizza again, even if he couldn’t taste it. He wanted to complain about Ms. Wilson again. He wanted to laugh again. Scrapping would ruin it, would ruin it all.

He was being moved. Lifted. The metal claw pressed down on his power button, and slowly, Robbie’s vision came to life.

The sky above him was dark. Gray clouds hung like heavy smears in front of the stars. The moon was pale and small. Robbie tried to wriggle out of the claw’s grasp, but he found that he couldn’t move. They must have dismantled his joints, then. He could do nothing but lie still as he was lowered into the pit.

An eagle screeched somewhere far above him. A blond strand fell in front of his eyes, blown forward by a limp wind.

“Project Robot-647aE was scrapped at 0958 of November 5,” intoned the claw.

A silence. The air was thick and opaque, filled with a million words that would never be said, heavy above an artificial life that would never be lived.

“My name is Robbie,” said Robot-647aE as he looked up at the waning moon.

Finis.